Why Today Is ‘Celebrate Lady Gaga’ Day
As the consummate performer known only as Lady Gaga celebrates her 30th birthday today, March 28, it is only fitting to take the opportunity to celebrate Gaga’s achievements in music, fashion, gender inequality, LGBT issues, and in particular, the artist’s unwavering stance against bullying. Gaga is the first to admit that she suffered lots of discrimination while attending school. All her achievements are living proofs that it’s possible to rise above all that discrimination, hatred and identity crisis.
If the painter Vincent Van Gogh is credited for setting colors forever free, Lady Gaga should be celebrated for starting the same revolution in the fashion world. Gap came quite close by admonishing the public to never be afraid of colors, but Gaga would set the bar higher. She not only set colors forever free in the fashion world. In her very own way, she would encourage everyone to believe that if it is boring, then it’s not fashion.
Billboard sums up Lady Gaga‘s 30 achievements in the entertainment industry, and in particular, the music industry. Wikipedia still credits Madonna as the most successful music artist in history when it comes to making the most money. Gaga’s achievements, in comparison, are hard to put a price on. They are simply priceless, and her 57.6 million Twitter followers demonstrate her power and influence in her social and professional circles.
Gaga has forever extinguished the stigma that she is but a poor imitation of Madonna. While the former is just getting started in the movie industry, she has already earned a Golden Globe award. The pervasiveness of her fashion sense even shows itself subliminally in such films as The Hunger Games and Mockingjay, of which Effie’s character is a perfect example.
Lady Gaga has already made her mark on 2016 in the most powerful ways pic.twitter.com/oMorcoFL63
— amber rozario (@AmberARTPOP) March 3, 2016
It is hard to believe that Lady Gaga is only 30-years-old. It will take at least one lifetime for someone to achieve what she has reached thus far. Reading her IMDb profile can be a chore, as it itemizes not only her job titles in a resume format. The sheer detail of Gaga’s guest performances and other appearances in this or that show is mind-boggling. Such depiction is enough to show the size and breadth of her influence. Consider, for example, the sheer number of lives she has touched with all these performances.
The triumph of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is not without its own share of setbacks, disappointments, and failures. The artist just manages to stay focused on the victory rather than its travails. NYMag calls her “The self-invented, manufactured, accidental, totally on-purpose New York creation of the world’s biggest pop star.”
To most of her fans, she is simply Mother Monster. And by the way, that title carries both the admonition as well the blessing to embrace one’s inner monster; as in, every artist has a monster or monsters within, just dying to be unleashed. Maybe it is this at-homeness with monsters that has inspired her to face the challenges head on while en route to victory. Or maybe growing up, the young Stefani just happened to watch a lot of Sesame Street, which depicted monsters, like the Cookie Monster, as actually harmless and friendly.
In November, 2013, she had a falling out with her stellar manager, Troy Carter, who is widely credited for the success of “Born This Way,” according to a Yahoo report. Still, Lady Gaga will forge one success after another, each one seeming to eclipse the one before it.
But, perhaps, Mother Monster’s biggest single achievement is inspiring generations not to be afraid to be themselves, and to forge their own destinies and ambitions without fear of consequences and retributions. If so, bullies are nothing but giant mascots filled with air. And Lady Gaga is that tireless Don Quixote who slays windmills to forge a lasting victory.
[Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]
